he's an elected member of the american academy of arts and sciences, and the american philosophical society. 2010, he received the national humanities center, which was presented to them by president obama in a ceremony at the white house in 2011, the nation's highest honor conferred upon a human. arnold rampersad has been a model and a mentor for literary scholars for more than three decades, and i include myself among that number. among those of us indebted to him for his insistence upon the university, for his insistence upon the universality of stance, of truth for the capital, and beauty with a capital b., and as dubois would have a. he combines the fullest embrace of his biographical subject humanity, with the courage to confront the fullest range of that humanity. qualities that are all too rare, even among our most lauded biographers. qualities absolutely necessary to the task of responsibly representing another persons life. all of its beauty and its darkness over the full range of its humanity, and ours. that is the essence of the autobiography, and it is the challenge that arnold